So Sacrilegious
by Sockey
Summary: “They always said that sex would change you. Today they steal your beating heart—you’ll have to keep on feeding it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” P.S. I love my reviewers! Marry me, all of you!
1. What Are Little Girls Made Of?

The tip of her tongue just barely whispers against the corner of her upper lip.

She stands upon a white platform—feet spread wide apart, palms facing rosy red backlighting. Her arms are frozen at a thirty-degree angle to her torso. Maybe she's trying to keep the ambiance at bay. Everything she's wearing is trimmed in red lace.

It all started years before this. Jin was gone. Again. Disappeared. Or maybe it all ended.

The bra she's wearing is entirely transparent, stitched with red strawberries.

She was hiding from the sun.

Grandpa Jinrei had brought in a tray for her some hours previous, and she had pretended to be asleep. Item: one silver teapot—steaming and fogged when first laid before her, now tepid and lifeless; the formerly sweet-smelling licorice tea now smelled luke-warm. Item: one teacup, the serving size of which would satisfy only a doll. Item: one dish of seaweed crackers. Item: three white doilies crocheted by her formerly, but not currently, living mother. Item: one plate panda cookies—her favorite.

He must have really been trying to cheer her up. All of her favorite things, she mused minus one.

She doesn't know how much the red stiletto heels cost. She never does. The platform is littered with half-eaten strawberries.

She was cocooned in her comforter, hoping somebody didn't try anything radical—like throwing open the blinds. She had no idea how long she'd been buried in there. Hoping the world would make sense to her when she chose to resurface.

Her exposed toes are French-tipped and lacquered pale, translucent pink.

Panda had left her. You know things are bad when you depress the household pets. The other members of her household recognized grief in all its various forms. They were used to it. Rather, they were used to her. Heaven knew it was always the same with her. Sparkly magenta eyeliner was caked and smeared all over and around her eyelids. Waterproof (adj.): Will smear with ease, but will never wash off, no matter how hard you try.

Her panties are black. Her hair is black. It's parted to the right and glossy, and a swatch of glossy black tendrils distorts the left half of her face. She's modeling bikini-style this time. Bikinis in the bedroom. What will they think of next? Her hair cascades like a waterfall—flat and glossy like a photo print. Her panties are printed with strawberries.

A crack ran through the center of the mirror. Her pillowy sanctuary was losing body warmth. All she could see was what used to be a face and a pigtail on each side.

Now the backlighting is gone. Someone whose name she will never be burdened with the knowledge of is sweeping away the strawberry butts at her feet.

She was sick. She was sick of thinking of her life in terms of "waiting for him". She was sick of putting her life on hold for him over and over again. She was sick of waiting.

Freeze.

Unfreeze.

Freeze.

Unfreeze.

She's not actually licking the bowl, but her tongue is sticking out as if she's about to.

She's surprised the bowl weighs so little. It looks to be about three times the length of her head in diameter, fashioned out of clear glass. An entire beach was sacrificed for its creation.

She was sick of not getting what she wanted, of sitting around, of putting her life on hold over and over again. She was sick, sick, sick of putting her life on hold over and over and over again. Waiting.

Freeze.

Unfreeze.

Freeze.

Okay, now hold it there.

The clasp on her bra is shaped like a strawberry.

She was sick. She was sick, sick, sick. Biding her time, biting her tongue, keeping her needs quiet, waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Freeze.

Unfreeze.

Freeze.

Boredom was setting in.

Bored with the same type of misery over and over and over again. Bored and sick. And waiting.

Freeze.

Unfreeze.

Freeze again.

Unfreeze again.

Freeze. Unfreeze. Freeze. Unfreeze. Freeze, unfreeze, freeze, unfreeze, freeze unfreeze freeze unfreeze freezeunfreezefreezeunfreeze.

Her lips are painted the color of a dark, juicy strawberry. This bowl might've aided topping an entire production line of strawberry shortcakes. And now she gets to lick the bowl. Or pretend to, at least. Her body is turned to the back-left corner of the room.

Sick of putting her life on hold, always putting his needs first, never once getting what she wanted, thinking that she deserved so much better, while he took his time sorting it all out. Knowing that she deserved better.

Waiting.

Freeze.

Unfreeze.

Freeze.

Stop. Okay. Now hold it there.

She can smell Cool Whip. Of course, the bowl isn't really made of glass.

No one can reasonably say anyone who enters a Tekken tournament is a good person. She counted the rings around her eyes—both the magenta and the inky blackish-purple ones. Birds were chirping outside of her window. It made her want to open the medicine cabinet and swallow.

Was she a good person?

The bra is gone now. Her mouth stands open, waiting to take her first juicy bite into the strawberry. The bowl is gone, too.

She pulled out one of her pigtails, then the other. Her whole head looked like it was in shock.

She always wishes she could say it was an accident.

But no one becomes an underwear model by accident.

She holds the strawberry between her thumb and forefinger. Her body is turned toward the back-right corner of the room. One arm shields her exposed breasts. Her stare penetrates the camera, wills each individual part into submission, and winks—just for them. Her stare says: _Ice Queen_. Strawberry fields forever.


	2. Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

He found her curled up in the alleyway, big, wet tears rolling down her face.

_Had a dream, had a drowning dream; I was in a river of pain._

Gunfire roared in the streets. People were screaming. Small fires burned. All she could see was the memory of the biggest gun she had ever seen in her life. It would be a long time before anyone parked their car in the street again. Aimed at her.

_Only difference: This time I wasn't calling out your name, yeah._

His alien form towered over her, drowning her scrunched up form in shadow. His infrared amber vision bored into her skin. The last thirty minutes had paralyzed her, leaving nothing but a frightened little girl behind. Make her dreams happen herself. She was more than willing to let this stranger, cloaked in darkness, body armor occasionally glinting in the firelight, be her savior.

_Has it ended before it's begun?_

Which is why, when he dropped to one knee and held out his arms to her, she, like it was the most natural thing in the world, threw her arms around his neck and melted into his warm metal chest.

_You hold on, and I try to run, but—_

Her pigtails were history. After the running and the turmoil and the exploding cars and grime and tears, her hair was grease-soaked, stringy, limply falling over her face. Her hood was pulled up Jin-style, and if she hadn't seen him lying unconscious in the street with a bazillion little tranquilizer darts poking out of his body, that comparison might've made her giggle. Her hoodie was black, and big floppy tiger ears had been sewn to the hood.

_Anybody heading in my direction—away from the city?_

The peculiar stranger pulled a luminous green katana from seemingly nowhere. She stared at the man's bony teeth, his skeletal jaw, his empty, burning eye sockets. He lifted them both to their feet. He lifted the gleaming sword over his head and began spinning his hand, spinning his sword around faster and faster like the blades of a helicopter, the rest of his arm simply remaining motionless over his head. What the fuck? she thought. They lifted off the ground.

_Anybody wanna change the way they feel? Step inside._

And all she could think was, How ridiculous.

_Doesn't really matter where you wanna take me—away from the city._

She sat curled up in an army surplus blanket, heavy-lidded, marveling how the grass glinted in the firelight. Someone wearing a colorful mask and a silly costume offered her a beverage. It looked like Coke. She accepted. The cup was warm. She brought it to her lips and recoiled. The scent of licorice filled her nostrils. She took a sip. The liquid was oddly tasteless, or, in any case, she was too tired to taste anything. She knew that she didn't like it. She also knew she didn't care.

_I wanna start again. I wanna start again. I wanna take it back. I wanna start again._

She could remember sitting at an unnecessarily long banquet table, Heihachi at one end, her and Jin facing each other at the other. It had taken her a few moments to realize that the terrifying sea creature on her plate was still alive. And then she had screamed and fallen out of her chair. Heihachi had roared with laughter. Sometimes she wondered if he had kept her around for his own sick amusement. Jin had smirked and said nothing.

_Funny how those friends forget you when you tire of their games._

At the age of sixteen, she'd had barely shoulder-length hair, straight as a pin except for an entirely unfascinating inward slant at its ends, her bangs evenly cut and neatly brushed to one side, indulging in the same inward slant. When sporting pigtails, she'd resembled an ugly cartoon baby. It had been her awkward stage.

_You miss a show or a party that blows, and they, they've forgotten your name, yeah, and you wonder what you've become._

It was a mystery why Jin had ever gone for her at all. And if he had ever really gone for her in the first place. And now he was gone again. Disappeared. It was a state she was becoming familiar with but not one she was ever sure he'd return from.

_They pull you back when you try to run._

Then she saw the gun. There had been so many guns that day. The one she was seeing, the one she couldn't seem to keep out of her head, was the one Jin kept in a small wooden box under his mattress. She saw the gun and what he intended to do with it. Over and over and over again. She saw the gun wedged in his mouth, felt the barrel hard against his teeth. Saw his insides and splintered fragments of skull splattered across the wall behind him.

_Well, anybody heading in my direction—away from the city?_

She pressed the blanket against her mouth. If she started screaming, she'd never stop.

_Anybody wanna change the way they feel? Step inside._

She'd been wandering downtown Tokyo, realizing she had no plan but feeling better now that she at least had a goal. She'd always been able to focus on one point of light, even in the dead of the night. Jin made her happy. She'd always told Panda her woes. She was old enough to realize that Panda couldn't understand her, but she'd still conversed with Panda like children converse with a doll or teddy bear. OMG I think Jin just broke up with me I'm never going to see him again sob. She'd realized she couldn't take Panda with her anymore. She'd realized Jin made her happy. Make her dreams happen herself.

_Doesn't really matter where you wanna take me—away from the city._

No matter how many times you get warned, some things are always a surprise. She, of course, had been expecting it. And she, of course, hadn't been surprised at all when it had finally come. She, though, had been scared out of her mind.

_I wanna start again. I wanna start again. I wanna take it back. I wanna start again._

'You don't get it, Xiao! You have a life, and you have a dream, but all I have is _this_, this duty. Don't you see? No, of course you don't. Sometimes you have to make things happen yourself, Xiao. You can't keep depending on everyone else for everything. People won't always be there for you. You have a dream that you want to come true, you should make it happen yourself. Stop depending on me, Xiao. I can't be there for you the way you need me to.'

_I left the me I used to be. I wanna see this through._

It had been a woman she'd barely recognized without the skanky red dress and a murder of armed men and a gun the size of a tree trunk. Color draining, airway constricting, losing health units, must move faster, must run, must—freeze.

She'd frozen.

"Look out!"

She'd been saved.

A hard body had tackled her to the side. The place where she'd been standing had exploded. They'd been momentarily hidden behind a parked car, a tangle of limbs. They'd sat up.

"Are you okay?"

His red hair had glinted in the firelight. She'd looked up at him. There'd been soot on his nose. He must've thought she was crazy.

She'd kissed him.

_I left the me I used to be. If only you'd see it, too._

Just run and keep running, she'd thought. She'd heard the car they'd been hiding behind explode as her feet hit the sidewalk.

_Well, I wonder what you've become._

A Tekken fighter's world becomes smaller and smaller until the other fighters are the only other people in it.

_You pull me back when I try to run._

Yoshimitsu returned to the camp. Even in the dead of night, as it was then, their clearing was aglow with light. Men and women dressed in silly masks and colorful costumes wandered in and out, abuzz with activity. Xiaoyu took no part in their commotion. Yoshimitsu said something to a couple of them in a trippy voice. She felt like she was the center of attention, yet no one was paying any attention to her.

_Well, anybody heading in my direction—away from the city?_

He sat cross-legged before her. She resisted the urge to ask him to pull off his mask. Somehow she sensed that was against the rules. His voice tripped her out. It was like he was on some psychedelic drug, or she was. The story he told her was classic, and when he was finished, she was crying.

_Anybody wanna change the way they feel? Step inside._

She finished crying. She was calm. She had found her point of light. She realized that her night had been a test. Those whole two years had been a test. She realized that all her dreams up to that point had been selfish. She had finally found something worth dying for. She would save the Mishima family. Because Jin made her happy.

_Doesn't really matter where you wanna take me—away from the city._

It took her much longer to realize that Jin did not make her happy, and saving him was the most selfish mission of all. Happiness is childhood, and the routine feelings of boredom and monotony she felt ever since Jin's first disappearance is just what growing up feels like.

_I wanna start again._

Miharu was the first to stop writing. She e-mailed Xiao every day, sometimes multiple times. Every day turned into once every few weeks. That didn't last long either.

_I wanna start again._

Yoshimitsu was second. He sent her e-mails updating her on what went on in the Tekken universe. He must have eventually realized that she no longer cared because, eventually, he stopped writing.

_I wanna take it back._

Grandpa Jinrei is the only one who still writes her. Reading his letters always made her sad, and there were times she sat around in her apartment for days, crying, after reading one. They're always hand-written. Eventually, she stopped reading them. Unopened letters litter her kitchen table.

_I wanna start again._

Jin never wrote once.


	3. And What Are Little Boys Made Of?

She never has a problem finding a cab outside the Hideaway Lingerie building. It's as if they wait all day for the models to need a ride. The rain is a waterfall of bullets that burst on contact. She is soaked deeper than her clothes, deeper than her skin. The raindrops perforate her soul, drowning her spirit and chilling her bones. She climbs into the cab.

Jin returned (the first time) on a balmy Thursday night. She was sleeping. She heard a series of loud thumps on her balcony. She woke up. Of course, she wanted to run out there. Any intruder talented enough to penetrate her beauty sleep would clearly be incapable of sufficiently defending him- or herself against her wicked prowess. Clearly. She discarded that idea in favor of the loaded gun she kept concealed in her nightstand drawer. She may have been young and dumb, but she wasn't stupid.

She crept out of bed, convinced she was prepared to use the weapon in her hands. Panda, forever the ferocious bodyguard, snoozed on the floor next to her bed. Tiptoeing around the black and white mass, she passed a mirror. The night was hot. Her sweaty, rumpled sleepwear matched the gun perfectly. Her ceiling fan helped the warm air circulate evenly. She crept into the living room, smart enough to aim the gun at the balcony door she'd been brilliant enough to leave standing open.

"I have a gun," she informed her intruder, "and I know how to use it."

"You'll forgive me if I have a hard time believing that." The voice was flat, enough to slice through her bravado.

She slumped. "Jin."

"Don't sound so relieved, Xiao." His hooded figure darkened the horizon. She stepped onto the balcony, eyeing him warily. Her haltered black leotard pinched at her skin, plastered to her like a layer of tar. A lovable pink bunny smiled beatifically at him from her white spaghetti-string top. Her shorts didn't have enough substance to qualify as clothing. Below the grinning bunny were the words: 'It's cute how you think I'm listening.' He pushed back his hood.

His ridiculous eyebrows were knit together over the bridge of his nose. She tugged at one of her twin French braids. Her hair was longer than last he'd seen, her bangs less tidy. She looked down at the gun in her hand, perplexed, then thumbed off the safety. She must have realized that wasn't right because, a second later, she thumbed it back on. She bit one side of her bottom lip and blew her bangs out of her eyes. Are you fucking kidding me, Jin? she thought.

Twenty minutes later, Xiaoyu slipped comfortably back into their old groove. Talk and listen. Jin laid in the grass, arms folded behind his head, eyes closed, a small, peaceful smile curving at his lips. She sat beside him, leaning back on her hands, telling him all about how much he had missed while he'd been gone. She relayed to him every anecdote, every funny thought, every stupid story she could remember. She would start telling him about one thing, but then another thought would occur to her, so she'd interrupt herself and go off on a tangent and then another, only to realize that she had entirely forgotten what her original thought had been, get really lost, then finally return to her initial topic when she found it again.

She told him that she was still going through her awkward stage, he just couldn't tell from the outside anymore. That's what you think, he said. She punched him. Then they made out. And for just one second, she felt whole again.

But then he pulled away, turned away, pushed away. What the fuck? she wanted to say, but she kept her mouth shut. He wasn't even there anymore. She wanted to ask him where he'd gone, but she knew he wouldn't let her go there. There was something in him she would never understand. It was a grain of sand in their relationship. She'd often thought that he came from somewhere else entirely, somewhere to which he was trying to return.

He stood. He still wouldn't look at her. He started to walk away. She stared after him a long moment, then scrambled up and followed behind him. She could hear air whistling through the puncture in her heart.

"Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" She can see the cabdriver eyeing her in his rearview mirror. She wants to ask him if that's a trick question but keeps silent. "Hey, I know where I seen you from! You're that girl from them underwear ads! You've got one of them freaky Asian names, like, um . . ."

The streets outside are a parking lot of taxis. Her dress is all bodice and white, transparent now from the torrential rain. Their taxi seems designed to project into the cab the High Definition surround sound of tires on rain-soaked asphalt. Her dress is off-the-shoulder, barely long enough to cover her ass, a cat's-cradle of black string, sleeves resting comfortably down a quarter the length of her arm. They ride through a puddle, and her window is caked in water slowly cascading downward. Her sleeves, as far as she can tell, are furry, feathery, sheer white confetti. Her bodice, as far as she can tell, is trimmed in black of the same and tickles the back of her thighs.

She begins to chew on the end of one finger. "So how do you models stay so skinny? 'Cause my wife, she could stand to lose a few, if you know what I mean, and she's always going on all them funky diets, but she can't seem to, er, manage it, you know?"

She looks up, tip of her finger still between her teeth. This man seeing her in nothing but her underwear makes her skin crawl. I'm on this fabulous new diet, she tells him. Well, I don't eat anything, actually, and when I start to feel faint, I suck on a carrot stick. She finds herself imitating the exotic/British accent that all the other models seem to affect.

Most days she wears hooker heels. She gets all the aesthetic benefits of heels but is still not "tall" and is, in fact, still shorter than the majority of her male colleagues. Today it's spiky black boots. The congregation of cabdrivers honk at each other outside her window.

"Oh, I remembers yer name now! It's Ling! Ling, er, something. Something with an 'X'. I never can pronounce those crazy Oriental names, you know how it is. Oh, and, hey, is Ling your first name or your last name? I can never tell with them freaky Asian names . . ."

That, she tells him, is my little secret. She knows it's useless to pronounce her first name for him.

"Ling? . . . Ling Xiaoyu?" And even before she turns to see the passenger sitting beside her, she knows she's in trouble.

She often thinks that irony has a great deal to do with reality and wonders how much of both is either fantasy or fallacy.

He still looks like a beautiful blonde duck, or like one exploded on the back of his head—but in the sexiest way possible. He stares at her with his leather jacket and jeans, in his brick red T-shirt, staring at her as if she's a ghost. In a way, maybe she is. This is her first encounter with anyone from the Tekken universe since leaving it, and she feels like she's on a different planet. She stares at him through strings of hair that fall into her face on a regular basis. Steve Fox. His gym bag sits between them. Absentmindedly, she blows the hair out of her eyes.

Their cabbie's head explodes. She's more surprised than anything else to see the front windshield splinter, feel the hot splash of his blood slash across her cheek.

Steve is pulling her out of the cab, and, suddenly, the city is all around her. Honking, cussing, and the immediate crush of angry yellow vehicles, and the rainfall pounds in her ears with the ringing. No one notices what's going on. The old paranoia is back, Steve pulls her into the bubblewrap of sidewalk concourse, and she's hopping on one spiked heel, struggling with the gun she keeps hidden in the other. Her heel breaks.

Steve pulls them into an abandoned alleyway, and she feels like she's going to have a seizure. WHAT, she breathes, THE . . . FUCK? He opens his mouth to speak but receives no such opportunity. YOU . . . PEOPLE, she seethes. IT'S LIKE WALKING THROUGH THE FUCKING BERMUDA TRIANGLE! Steve's trying to quiet her. DON'T YOU SHUSH ME! she screams, nearly biting his fingers off. GOD, I AM SO SICK OF PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL ME WHEN I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING! she wails, close to tears.

Steve grabs her face and kisses her. The kiss is about ninety percent hair, what with the rain plastering the stuff to her face and it being in the way to begin with. She molds herself to him, too inextricably occupied to know what to do with her arms. Molecules within her chest rearrange, and they are soaked, their soaking clothes sticking together.

She gulps for air, and raindrops drip from their noses and eyelashes. She moans. I'm going to sleep with you now, aren't I?

"Damn right you are," he growls and kisses her again.


	4. Of Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

The sex is bad.

Not that she would know. She was a virgin.

They had an exciting time getting her dress off, but the actual act borders on betrayal. His accent tastes better than this. It's not that it doesn't feel _good_—it does—it just doesn't feel _fantastic_. Whether describing it as a magical adventure, an hunger, a thirst, or a fun pasttime, all parties seem to agree on one thing—sex is supposed to be _fantastic_.

But what if they're all wrong?

Or worse. Exaggerating. After all, they want it to sell, don't they? Who would buy something _good_ when they could have something _fantastic_? Therein the true crime lies. Hyperbole kills both reality and creativity, leaving nothing but expectation. For all she knows, and what she is starting to believe, the sex isn't bad at all. In fact, maybe it's quite _great_.

And the more she _thinks_ it's fantastic, the more fantastic it _becomes_.

Then thinking becomes too difficult for her altogether, and all she can do is feel. They're a slow-motion accident. They grip the bedsheets and gasp for air. His lips are a split-second away from hers, and she feels him gasp her name. Prick of pain, a rush of blood, and rain pounds against her windowpane.

She thinks she's in shock. She thinks they both are.

Steve leans over, kisses her cheek. She hears a rustle of sheets, hears him slip out of bed, pad out of the room. A minute later, she hears the shower running. She lies in bed, covers pulled up over her breasts, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathing pattern readjust.

Slowly, she slides out of bed. Standing is more difficult than she could've imagined, but instead of retreating back to the sanctuary of her bed and cowering in surrender beneath the covers, she walks defiantly to the bureau and throws open a drawer. Pain was never an object. One perk of being an underwear model is free lingerie. She keeps it all in a drawer, useless to her. She digs through this drawer now. For once, she's glad she never threw it all out like she was meaning to. She has no clue what she has. A treasure trove of the last season's lingerie, she discovers.

She finds something fluffy and cream-colored. She pulls it out for a closer look. Apparently, it's a bra. The sheer amount of frills is so revolting, it's almost impressive. There's a cream-colored bow over each nipple. It's absurd. It hurts her soul. It's perfect. She figures, What the Hell.

She slams the drawer shut. To the closet now. She throws it open and searches frantically. Her closet reads like some unwritten book called _An Illustrated Guide to the Tragically Hip_, and, somehow, none of it seems right. She pushes the clothes aside, pulls out a hefty cardboard box. The box is ancient, hidden in a closet's back corner for years. She digs through the box. A floral pink sundress, a smashed china tea set, a stuffed panda, an old school uniform. A good-sized collection of track pants and sports bras that are fashion abhorrent. Years of bitterness and repressed memories. Yellow ribbons, white puffballs, a mass assortment of chunky bracelets. Everything is pink. Everything that is not pink has a cute animal on it. Every hood has a pair of ears sewn to it.

She finds a pair of jeans. The seams are pulled apart about a foot on each leg. The hem is shredded. She undergrew most things in this box, but not these. She insisted on wearing them despite the fact that they were too small. They're pockmarked with grass stains, holes, and shredded denim, and they look like a thousand days of playing out-of-doors—or maybe in a warzone. She closes her eyes. Instantly, she can remember carnivals and kisses and walks in the forest at midnight and tearstains and disappointments and a thousand sunny days she enjoyed and another thousand she didn't.

She bundles the jeans tight against her chest and kicks the box back into the closet. Any moment, her legs will collapse from the effort of movement.

The clothes fit. Well, in fact. She looks at herself in the mirror. She wishes she had accepted that offer to get her hair bronzed, but, other than that, she looks alright. She arranges an elegant bump of hair at the forefront of her head and pins it somewhere in the back. Her hair is straight almost to a fault, even in the morning or as it is now. She pulls it into some sort of messy bun.

To the make-up drawer now. A clatter sounds as the forgotten tubes and bottles roll around. She picks a tube of creamy cream-colored liquid eyeliner from the assortment of drugstore brands and stares at it as if she can't remember how to operate such a complicated piece of equipment. It's been a long time since she's had to do her own make-up. She lines her eyes in black and paints her lashes with mascara. She thoroughly coats her lips in some ambiguous, shimmery-colored lip gloss.

She stares at her reflection. Fox Xiaoyu. She likes the way that sounds. She turns it over in her head.

She places her hand over the place where he kissed her cheek. Not too long ago, she remembers, that cheek was smeared with blood.

She marches into the bathroom. The shower is still running. Steve? she calls. He pokes his head out from behind the shower curtain. A reply sits on the tip of his tongue, behind his lips, but then he sees her. His eyes widen, but not comically so, and his mouth hangs slightly ajar, but not wide enough for the reply to roll out of his mouth and onto the floor.

And he falls.

Figuratively and literally because then he trips and falls in the shower like an elderly person. A wordless laugh bubbles in the back of her throat. Why aren't I going over to help him? she thinks. Before she can worry too hard, she sees his shadow climb to its feet. He turns off the shower. Are you okay? she asks because she feels obligated to.

"Don't worry about it," he says, reaching out his scarred arm and grabbing a towel from her towel rack. "I should've known you'd come in here looking like bloody Helen of Troy when she launched all those ships." He wraps the towel around his waist and steps out of the shower. "What were you going to ask me?" His bare chest glistens. She looks at him as if it's impossible for her to take him seriously.

Get dressed, you whore. I can't think when you look like that. He grins.

"That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me," he tells her, leaning over to kiss her forehead.

It's one of the only things I've ever said to you, she thinks as he exits the room.

The mirror is fogged. She wipes away some of the condensation with the back of her hand. Her reflected self looks like it's disgusted with her. Like maybe a smile has lodged itself in the back of her throat, but she's too stubborn to cough it up. Her heart was turning to stone, but now she can just float.

It suddenly occurs to her that she was hungry, once upon a time. Rapaciously so, actually. This is what happens when a girl is forbidden from eating the juicy red props she is then forced to work with all day because it will make her fat/ruin her teeth/make-up/life. She can hear vaguely Steve-like noises coming from her bedroom. She decides to go in search of sustenance.

She turns the kitchen light on. Steve emerges wearing those same jeans and that same brick red T-shirt. He sits at her kitchen table as if he belongs there and glances curiously at the pile of unopened letters. The pile has begun to spill over onto the floor. He stretches out in his chair, laces his fingers behind his head, and watches her frantically run around opening and shutting cupboard doors. Amusement curls at the corners of his mouth. He's looking at her as if he could look at her all day.

Her cupboards are bare. She opens the fridge. It is also bare, save a few cartons of Chinese take-out. Her left eye twitches in frustration. She slams the refrigerator door shut, then opens it right back up again. She glares at the inside of her refrigerator as if to scold it for not magically growing food in her absence. Why don't I have any food? she wonders to herself. Angrily, she seizes the first two take-out containers she can get her hands on and slams the fridge shut with even more force than the first time. She rips open her silverware drawer, retrieves a pair of forks, and slams it shut again with a rattle.

She slams a carton of Chinese take-out down onto the table in front of him. The pair of forks clatters to the table. She slams down the other carton as well. The room is oddly still as she drops without looking into an available chair. She slumps down in her seat, folds her arms across her chest, and pouts a bit. Why do you look less surprised than I am that this is all I have to eat in my apartment? she asks. Steve dines and says nothing. She's famished, but the thought of actually eating is somehow repulsive to her at the moment.

. . . However. Watching in silence as Steve eats reminds her of how good the stuff tastes when it's warm. She inspects the label on her carton. Szechwan noodles. Her carton is greasy. She opens it. It would appear that her noodles have disintegrated into rice.

"So is this how you models stay so skinny?" Steve asks between bites. "Refrigerated take-out?" She glowers at him as if to say, Me and my Chinese take-out are none of your business, and shoves a forkful of noodles/rice into her mouth. She forces herself to swallow. The noodles/rice seem to stick in her throat. She takes another bite and makes a face.

I'm eating this on the basis that I need to eat something, she tells him. Despite her words, she is simply unable to choke down another bite and sets the carton back down on the table. She looks honestly baffled by her own actions. She watches Steve in what could be fascination. This man confuses her, and she's not quite sure what to do about it.

He finishes off whatever was in his carton. She clears her throat. It's not in her nature to disturb the status quo—even if the status quo is recurring tension and constant unhappiness. It's not in her nature to dig beneath the surface. What if she likes the surface? Peace, even a superficial peace, is preferable to confrontation, and, if everyone else is going to pretend that nothing is wrong, well, so will she. If she cares about someone, loves someone, she will forgive them over and over and over again, no matter how angry she is.

She always wants to be the cool girl, the girl who never asks questions and takes whatever she's given. But even if she never asks questions and takes whatever she's given, eventually the cool girl will get bored. Bored with the same type of misery over and over again. Bored and sick.

Steve? He looks up from what was a rather pensive expression. Help me. Explain to me what happened tonight.

"Which part?" he asks dryly.

Let's start at the beginning, she says, and maybe we'll . . . continue from there. And please don't try to tell me this has nothing to do with you. She simpers. You are a Tekken fighter, after all.

He says, "The Mafia is after me," and sounds very bored.

This she does not expect. And she knows she should tell him, Leave. Get out of my apartment before you get me killed or I beat you to death with a scented candle. But she picks up the twin Chinese take-out cartons—his empty, hers full—and walks to the sink without saying a word. She throws the pair of forks into the sink. They clink against the stainless steel basin. One falls half into the garbage disposal. She throws both cartons—empty and full—into the trash. Her arm starts bleeding. She could swear she's imagining it. She runs her finger over the scratch and gapes at the blood. She rubs her thumb and forefinger together. She thinks she's cut herself on silence. The blood feels like oil between her fingers.

She digs the fork out of the garbage disposal, turns on the cold tap. You seem very calm about all of this, she says over the sound. She hand-washes the pair of forks in cold water, and ribbons of blood run from her fingers and into the drain.

Steve moves to stand at the counter. "Believe me, sweet, I'm not. I suppose I've just had time to get used to it." She turns off the tap. "I've been dodging them for . . . Blimey. For a long time." A towel hangs from the fridge door handle, and she dries the forks.

Must you persist in your use of inane British slang? she asks because she can't help it.

"Since before my first tournament."

What? she asks because she's lost the thread of their conversation.

"I said I've been dodging the Mob since before my first tournament," he calls. She drops both forks on her foot and yelps.

She stands and stares at him with wide eyes, the towel hanging limply from her right hand. This man is a god, she thinks.

Clearly, you're a god, she tells him. And she's thinking that falling for someone with the Mob after them is plain impractical and decides against it.

She kicks the forks and moves to stand at the counter. One skids beneath the refrigerator. She hears the other clank and go still. Now she stands opposite him, nothing but a counter between them, and she's wondering what the fuck's _up_ with her hands and the way they won't stop shaking unless she fiddles sadistically with the soggy, tattered dish towel clenched in her fist.

But, baby, she whispers, wouldn't entering all those tournaments paint a big, bright bull'seye on your back? She narrows her left eye and aims an imaginary gun at his head. She fires this imaginary gun with a wink and a winning smile and blows on her loaded finger.

"Entering tournaments seems to be the only way to get them to take a holiday," he tells her. "I think they keep hoping I'll die." She coughs. "While we're on the subject of guns, where is yours?" She gives him a blank look and pulls a gun the size of a make-up jar out of her back pants pocket. Transferring the gun from one outfit to the next is so natural to her that she's not even aware she's done it most of the time. She feels more naked without her gun than she does wearing nothing but her panties on a billboard.

She replaces the gun in her pockets and says, Well, Fox, what shall we do with you—still alive after all these years?

"Surviving is what I do best," he tells her with a winning smile of his own. "Surviving the Mafia. Surviving tournaments. I'm a pro, sunshine. Besides, I should be asking you the same thing."

We seem to have that in common, you and I. Surviving tournaments, I mean. She stares at the dish towel she still holds crumpled in both hands.

"But you got out," he says, giving her a stare so cold and dark she thinks she may melt.

Yes, she answers, I got out, and feels like a selfish twit. And suddenly it's all she can do to not take her perfectly manicured nails and dig them into her wrists until it all stops hurting so damned much.

She buries her face in the dish towel. "Hey." Steve lifts her chin and gently removes the towel from her tremulous fingers. She has no choice but to face him, and she's relieved to see he has perfect teeth. She turns away from him because the concern in his eyes is slicing her open. Don't look at me like that, she begs. At the end of this, she still wants her selfish pride.

He kisses her, and she pulls away. Listen, Fox—

He grabs a handful of her hair and kisses her again. "Shut up, Ling."

The counter between them soon becomes a problem. Steve reaches across the expanse, wraps both hands around her waist, and neatly lifts her onto the countertop. She really is small, he realizes. Slender almost to the point of thinness and even shorter without those wild heels. She's on her knees, thighs spread across his hips, and pressing herself against every part of him she can. Why had she told him to get dressed again? Her hands find their way beneath the hem of his shirt. He's more lean than muscular, and she entertains herself with the abs she knows are gorgeous even if she isn't able to view them at the moment. He lifts her off the counter.

The only man she dated since coming here left their first date thoroughly convinced that she was made of ice or bronze or some equally cold, hard substance and never called her again.

Steve's hands are on her ass, pushing her rough against him. "Ling, you're exceptional." His voice is hot against her neck. She pauses.

I don't seem to you made of stone? she asks against his lips.

"No," he answers emphatically. "No, no, no." The words are a caress. "You're not made of stone. You're made of flesh and blood and bone and—" He kisses her again because he needs to. "You're soft and warm and . . . and beautiful . . ." Her skin intoxicates him, and he decides that talking is becoming too difficult for him.

Xiaoyu digs her nails into his shoulderblade. Keep talking, she breathes. His lips pinch against her jawline. She gasps. Oh, shut up, shut up, keep talking! There's an urgency in her voice he can't ignore. He talks between kisses, between the moments when he can't help but touch her, and he's wondering if all those ruffles will make it harder to unhook her bra.

Then her floor-to-ceiling picture window explodes, and gunfire roars into the room.


	5. So What Kind of Magic Spell to Use?

Lead erupts beneath her collarbone. She thinks she should scream. All she can really feel is surprise. Surprise. A party for me? You shouldn't have! Surprise. A four-leaf clover? Wow! Oops! I'm modeling a thong. Surprise!

His arm twists around her chest and twists her out of the way. Deformed streaks of white skin pucker and bulge and criss-cross and tangle when he moves. There's movement on her ass, then metal shoved into her hands. His hand tugs her wrist out the door. She can't hear a thing anymore. But she can feel her own traitorous skin take a half dozen more bullets.

Mafia hitmen are clearly better marksman than the Tekkenshu.

Blood blossoms bright. It runs slick over her breast and naked stomach. It fills the cavity below her shoulder. It smears with her arm when she moves. Or maybe they're lousy shots, too. Steve seems to be entirely unhit. The waist of her jeans is soaking with red.

She finds herself being carried in his arms now. It's a bumpy ride. You know, I'll just bleed out faster this way, she says.

"You're not going to die from superficial gunshot wounds." He doesn't look at her. Since when did he have a gun? Superficial. Gunshot. Wounds. She can't quite digest the words as a whole. She's vaguely conscious of stairs and doors and objects they pass by. Superficial. What a silly words for pain. Did that mean it was fake? Or just shallow? If she swam a little deeper, would it wait for her to resurface? Or was he lying? Would it follow her down and tear her to shreds? Maybe he was the superficial one. She's covered in blood. She sticks to herself. She's rambling. She starts listening to herself.

. . . They're not after me, she continues. Just run. I'm only slowing you down at this point. Was the outside air always this cold? Suddenly she's back on her feet. His hands are arounds her wrists, and she wonders where they are.

"Listen to me. You've been shot. I need to get you to a hospital." Gunshot. Wounds. Did his teeth hurt his words? Gunshot. Shot. Shot? She'd been shot? She'd been shot.

I've been shot, she repeats softly. Her eyes widen. His eyes hurt her, and is that her blood all over him? The gun in her hands is gooey. When did the rain stop? She screams. She feels unworthy of a place as clean as a hospital. She screams louder. She can't remember a time she wasn't screaming.

She's in his arms again. A scream fills her head, and she won't take responsibility for it. She thinks he's telling her to shut up, and she scream because she doesn't have a choice anymore. She buries her face in his chest and screams at his shirt. She screams because she's paranoid. She screams because it's obvious. Little footsteps echo inside her skull. The scary people are working her brain again.

Clearly, it's the end of the world.

She swims deeper. Her chest fills with water, her scream finally drowns, and she shreds to ribbons as her fingertips grasp for the bottom . . .


End file.
